


i talk to you as if you’re really there

by badboy_fangirl



Series: Car Pranking 101 [1]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A weird fic, set in early S3, in which Damon and Elena pull a prank, kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i talk to you as if you’re really there

**Author's Note:**

> This is for upupa_epops, from her prompt: _A D/E friendship fic. Without any UST, without doom, gloom and personal growth._ Title and quote from the poem "Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out" by Richard Siken, which was brought to my attention by the aforementioned upupa_epops. For this to work in the canon timeline, you have to pretend that Caroline was missing for more than a day and that Damon and Elena's trip to Chicago occurred after she was rescued, not while she was being rescued. So basically, this is just as hard to follow as the show itself for how and when it really happened. *g*

_I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,  
I sink the boat of love, but that comes later._

"So, we're taking tomorrow off," Damon announces while standing in her kitchen.

Elena looks up at him from the pizza she's dragging on to a plate to zap in the microwave. "What?"

"Tomorrow. I'm declaring it a Non-Looking-For-Stefan-Day. You plan something for us to do that doesn't involve the sheriff, or shitty leads to nowhere, or, I don't know, misery to end all misery."

She wants to glare at him, but it actually sounds like the escape she's been looking for. All the same, she's not going to make it easy on him. He's kept her out of the loop—or rather _knocked_ her out of it—too many times for her to make it easy. "Why don't you plan it, since it's your bright idea?"

She slams the microwave door shut and presses the minute button, staring him down from across the island counter.

"Because, I'm not the teenager around here. Think of something fun—something you would have done, say, if you'd never had a vampire boyfriend."

He spins around on his heel and heads for the door. "I'll be back tomorrow, at 3 o'clock sharp. Be ready!"

Elena's halfway through her pizza before she knows just what they should do.

 

 

She makes him take her to Costco in Fredricksburg. When he complains about how much gas it takes to drive there, she narrows her eyes and asks, "Aren't you rich?"

He just smirks at her. Then he asks, "So what are we doing at Costco? Scavenger hunt? Lunching off all the samples? Wheelies with the carts?"

"We're going to buy a bunch of toilet paper and saran wrap, and we're going to prank Caroline's car."

"What?" His head turns towards her and his eyes stay on her. This always unnerves her, how he can drive without really paying attention. She knows vampires have great reflexes and all that, but she also knows he does it _because_ it makes her nervous. "Why would I want to prank Caroline's car?" he demands. "Like she doesn't already detest me, even though I've saved her life, like, I don't know, five times?"

"You said I should plan something I would do if I'd never had a vampire boyfriend. Caroline took off out of town without even saying goodbye to any of us. So it's open season on her car, since she didn't take it with her."

He continues to stare at her. "So, before. You were a mean girl?" he asks, and his expression is a cross between befuddled and impressed, which makes Elena laugh.

When she catches herself laughing, she almost feels guilty. But then she remembers. _It's a Non-Looking-For-Stefan-Day._ So she pushes the guilt aside and lets her head fall back, and the laughter just tumbles out. "Just to Caroline," she finally eeks out and Damon's smile sort of lights up the whole car. 

He's not smirking, or pulling the eye-thing, or doing anything except enjoying himself, too. It suddenly hits Elena that this is not just for her. It's for both of them.

(She can do it with gusto since it's not just for her.)

 

 

Several hours later they're both giggling in the dusk of the setting sun. Yes, Damon would describe the sound coming out of his own mouth as giggling because he whispers loudly and vehemently from the other side of the car, "Stop giggling! It's making me giggle, too! Vampires don't giggle!"

Caroline's Ford Focus is wrapped front to back in toilet paper. Elena's about to bust open the giant container of plastic wrap just as Damon circles the car and waves her down with his hand. "I think Liz just drove up!" he says, dropping down on to his haunches next to her at the rear of the car. His whisper, loud with panic, just makes Elena laugh harder, since Damon is friends with the Sheriff. There was a time when Caroline's mom would have led the lynch mob against him, but right now his wide eyes show the worry of someone about to get in major trouble for something really dumb.

Damon shushes her and she wants to remind him not everyone can hear from a good distance if they want to.

Caroline's normal parking spot is right out in front of her house, but for whatever reason, before she left town so inexplicably she pulled it into the driveway on the back side of the house. They aren't quite visible from the street, but if Liz makes her way into the kitchen and looks out the window over the sink, they're toast. Elena thinks quickly, because she doesn't want to get caught even though Liz would probably just think it's funny anyway. The point was to _not_ get caught, so she whispers back to Damon, "Call her. Make up some fake vampire emergency! Get her out of here!"

He frowns at her and his eyebrows do some sort of acrobatic _I-can't-do-that,-that's-ridiculous_ shuffle across his forehead before he freezes and she can almost see a light bulb pop over his head.

He pulls his phone out and she leans over slightly to see that Liz is fourth on his contacts list. (Elena sees her own name at the top, then Alaric's, then Stefan's, which is ironic since Stefan hasn't answered his phone all summer.) "Good evening, Liz," Damon says smoothly into the phone, giving Elena an odd look when he sees how close she is to him. "I just saw some suspicious behavior out behind the Grill."

Elena waits, unable to make out Sheriff Forbes' words, though she can hear the murmur of her voice quite well. She looks back at the house, waiting for the kitchen light to flick on, but it doesn't. "No," Damon responds. "I don't think it was vampires, just good ol' hoodlums. I saw them vandalizing someone's car."

Elena's mouth drops open and she hits Damon in the arm. He lifts his elbow to ward her off and the smile on his face gives Elena that same burst of joy it had as they drove to Fredricksburg earlier. "I would have just scared the bejesus out of them myself, but I didn't want to start the vampire rumor mill up again. You understand?"

He's quiet for a moment, and he presses a finger to Elena's lips as though she might start speaking and ruin the whole thing. She rolls her eyes at him. "Thanks for checking it out, Liz. Let me know if you need any back-up."

He disconnects the call and they wait quietly until they hear the squad car start up and drive away. 

"You're welcome," he mutters, getting back to his feet. He snags the plastic wrap from her grasp and walks around to the front of the car.

Elena finally relaxes, the pent up air in her lungs flowing out in a rush. She imagines Bonnie's disapproval of this whole endeavor, not the prank itself, just the company she's keeping, but Elena knows. 

There's no better wingman than Damon Salvatore.

 

 

The next day she goes to the Boarding House and finds him lounging on one of the sofas in the great room, reading a book. He glances up as she comes in. "Back to business as usual?" he asks when he sees the frown on her face.

Elena shakes her head. "No, but I do need you to help me un-prank Caroline's car."

"What?" he demands in a high-pitched voice. "I made sure we didn't get caught! How did that happen?"

As she tells him about Caroline's dad chaining her up and torturing her, his annoyed expression softens into something akin to concern. Elena shrugs and says, "I just don't think it's funny now. Now, it's just mean, and I don't want her to have to clean it up."

It takes a lot less time to undo it than it did to do it in the first place, but as they're shoving it all into a big garbage bag, Damon says, "Next time? We're totally doing Bonnie's car."

Elena laughs. "No, we're not. She'll set you on fire."

He stops, looks over at her as he's tying the bag shut. "Oh, yeah."

Elena watches his face for a moment, then offers, "How about this? When we get Stefan back. We'll do _his_ car. _That_ would be funny."

A slow grin creeps over his face. He just nods at her as he swings the garbage bag up on to his shoulder. They walk back towards the street quietly. After Damon shoves the bag into the back seat of the Camaro, Elena says, "I'm going to go hang out with Care for a while."

"Okay," Damon says. "Give her my best. Or, you know, don't. If it helps, say...you know what? Never mind. Tell Liz if she needs me, to call me."

"I will," Elena says, nodding. As she turns away to walk up the porch steps, she can't help the little smile that forms from his concern for Caroline, even if he can't properly express it.

"Elena?" he calls.

She looks over her shoulder at him. "Yeah?"

"I'm good at this whole car-prank business, right?"

She smiles. "You did okay."

Looking satisfied, he slams the passenger door shut and rounds his car to the other side. "Damon?" she calls. He looks up at her. "You're not the worst company in the world, either, you know."

He smirks as he opens the driver's side door. "I _do_ know," he says.

"Good."

She watches him drive away before she goes into Caroline's house.


End file.
